Life: A User's Manual (Verba Mundi)
Georges Perec, David Bellos
Language: English
Pages: 661
ISBN: 1567923739
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Over twenty years ago, Godine published the first English translation of Georges Perec's masterpiece, Life A User's Manual, hailed by the Times Literary Supplement, Boston Globe, and others as one of the great novels of the century. We are now proud to announce a newly revised twentieth anniversary edition of Life. Carefully prepared, with many corrections, this edition of Life A User's Manual will be the preferred reference edition for the future. Structured around a single moment in time 8:00 P.M. on June 23, 1975, Perec's spellbinding puzzle begins in an apartment block in the XVIIth arrondissement of Paris where, chapter by chapter, room by room, an extraordinarily rich cast of characters is revealed in a series of tales that are bizarre, unlikely, moving, funny, or (sometimes) quite ordinary.
The Explosion of the Radiator Hose (French Literature Series)
soliflor containing a purple moonflower, a variety of everlasting flower also called Star of the Nile, combine to clutter the table’s narrow top. Compared to the back room, or even to her bedroom, this room holds relatively few pieces of furniture; the season is certainly a poor one for business, but Madame Marcia, on principle, has never sold a lot of items simultaneously. Her back room, her cellar, and the rooms of her own flat give her plenty of opportunity to rotate her stock, without her
house, 47, 48. Eger (Hungary), 154. EGER (Meglepett), Hungarian sculptor, 174. EGNATIUS, 289. Egypt, 93, 166, 194, 242, 248, 332, 372, 373, 443, 454. EHRENFELS (Christian, Baron von), Austrian philosopher, 1858–1932, 173. Eiffel Tower, 488. Eighteen Lectures on Industrial Society, by Raymond Aron, 241. Eimeo (Tahiti), 424, 425. EINSTEIN (Albert), American physicist, 1879–1955, 83, 457. Eisenühr (Austro-Hungary), 288. Elementary Treatise on Internal Pathology, by Béhier & Hardy, 326.
cloak. He has sideburns and pince-nez; he is standing beside a brass-and-mahogany revolving bookcase in Second Empire style, on the top of which there is a paste-glass vase filled with arum lilies. His top hat, gloves, and stick are laid beside him on a shell-encrusted kneehole desk. This man – James Sherwood – was the victim of one of the most celebrated swindles of all time: in eighteen ninety-six, a pair of tricksters of genius sold him the vase in which Joseph of Arimathæa gathered the
her son; since then, the poor lad has been continually humiliated by the actor, who exploits him shamelessly; 3. the count of Châteauneuf, a bee-keeper, is known to harbour a mortal hatred for the Gormas family, since Gatien Gormas, president of the Beaugency Public Safety Committee, had Eudes de Châteauneuf sent to the guillotine in 1793. 4. the art dealer Gromeck, both out of jealousy and for publicity; 5. Lisa Gromeck, who never forgave Gormas his having rejected her for the Italian actress
inscribed in a lozenge). Obviously Valène had a pencil in his pocket, and when they had managed to use Flora Champigny’s nail scissors to cut out a correct-sized piece of envelope more or less neatly, he dashed off a very presentable jack of clubs with a few strokes, which provoked his three companions into whistles of admiration for the good likeness (Raymond Albin), for the speed of execution (Monsieur Jérôme), and for the intrinsic beauty of the drawing (Flora Champigny). But they then ran
